


Thermohaline

by faceofstone



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: (which Tidus didn't have because some kid whispered a spoiler at him and ran), Bittersweet, Caretaking, Emotional Bonds, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16337216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceofstone/pseuds/faceofstone
Summary: Sinking in the far North, led adrift by alien currents. There is no home waiting for Jecht, there never was, not on these shores.





	Thermohaline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/gifts).



Jecht’s first words after seeing Zanarkand are lost to the winds. The first words the others can hear come late, past Gagazet's descent and the slopes of the last hills, when they're back on sea level and knee-deep in a fog of pyreflies as thick as mud and cold as death.

“Told ya,” he says with a fixed, strained grin after a day of grating silence, cupping a pyrefly with his hand and following its movement as if he were juggling a blitzball. “Look! We have fireworks.” The pyrefly sparks and rises past his height, floating onwards on the highway. “And a red carpet. Onwards, team! We made it. The highway leads home.”

 

Jecht marches on. Braska and Auron let him lead, keeping a respectful distance. They follow him on that faded, crumbling strip of asphalt that cuts through the first outskirts of the sacred city. There is a fury in their companion that’s waiting to claw its way out of his ribs, the pain of finding a home that has been destroyed for a thousand years, of touching the petrified ruins of all the places that used to make up the topography of his life. It's not coming. There is no release. Jecht snarls as he rushes through narrow street corners, pressing on under the steel bones of the skyscrapers. He goes deeper and deeper into a maze of mirrors and missed landmarks, as if Zanarkand were shifting past the corner of his eye just to sneer at him. The shards of memories that populate the ghost city, moments forever reenacted by the pyreflies, never show a familiar face. A salt wind rises. Jecht follows it to the sea.

“Where is it?” he shouts at the docks. “Spit it out! They were here! Show them to me!”

His Abes lived on the sea. So did his wife and son. They spent their lives there, maybe they died there, where is the monument to those existences, he wants to shout, where is the mark they must have left on the world, where is a rotten plank he can call a grave. The waters ahead are dark and empty. Jecht kneels on the promenade, eyes closed as he tries to figure it all out, these pieces that don't make sense and clutter his brain until it's as much of a wreck as the buildings he's left behind him. The city's centerless maze wouldn't matter if he could only walk for an instant where Tidus had walked. He looks up into the darkness. Auron strides toward him just in time to see him jump.

 

The currents are cold and wrong. He could fight them but, all in all, sees no reason to. The sea closes around him and pushes him down to darker, colder depths. He is drowning in a foreign sea.

 

Consciousness flickers in and out. Jecht is part of the water now, and of the sky far above. If he reaches out of his tired body he can find the dead glow of a nearby pyrefly, and hold onto it, and from there move onto another, or two, or ten, and from each ten more, and spread himself thin across the shore. He sees with new clarity all of this dead city, these foreign docks. It's so cold. Two bright lights beckon him, welcoming but so far away: Braska and Auron, standing on the far-most pier. They call for him. They call. And call.

 

Powerful wings disturb the water's surface. His summoner’s voice still calls for him through the waves. Arms grab a body that is not his own anymore. They have stopped calling.

 

They are huddled around his body, back on the shore. Braska is busy tending to a bonfire with his magic, which is funny because Braska himself is the fire, can't he see it. He shed all his manners and all the tame roles he played at the foot of Gagazet and has carved his path out of burning determination ever since, a beacon of hope, kindness, and a faith in something deeper than the bare lies Yevon forced him to uphold. Auron, too, is light and passion, desperate and loyal. Beautiful, in its own stupid way. Dumb as a rock. Inspiring. And it's Auron who takes off his coat, grunting and shivering on the windswept docks, and places it on Jecht's shoulders to put some warm, dry clothes on him and hope it helps. It does help. This, too, is a current, and one that Jecht is not obtuse enough to ignore. They have all been carried away from their worlds, and toward each other. It's just them, lights in a cold world. Jecht reaches out toward a pyrefly, then another, then another, and for them, he's back.

 

“Not my Zanarkand,” he says, shivering into the borrowed coat. It's is blissfully warm, as is the bonfire. “I couldn't say for sure from the streets. Was too drunk to make it to the grocery store more often than not, you see. 's always been a maze, my Zanarkand.” He doesn't look back toward the buildings - he looks at Braska, and Auron, and Braska again. It's warm. “But the waters? I'm a blitzer. Damn best blitzer my city has ever seen, in fact, but you know that. It means I know the currents, up on the surface and down deep. Anything gets unmoored from the docks, it ends up in Matoya’s Shallows and I can say for certain, there ain't no such thing here. I don't know what this is, but it's not my Zanarkand.”

 

Braska takes his younger guardian under his arm, letting the heavy petals of his robe cover Auron’s bare shoulders. Were they waiting for a miracle when they brought Jecht here, and found only more disappointments, more mysteries to swallow before the crucial one looming over the end of their journey? “My Lord,” says Auron, his voice trembling like Jecht's had. They are all unmoored. Braska doesn't need to hear more. He keeps him close and reaches out to Jecht as well. The waves roar into the darkness beyond the piers.

 

Jecht doesn't understand. All he knows is that the currents of his life led him there, toward Braska's warmth and Auron's intensity; that his old world is gone forever, erased like it was never there, and his new world is just these two. These two who still have to give their all and it may not be enough in the face of the unknown, a darkness that is so much more vast than they’d expected. They're a team. Least he can do is to play captain.

 

“You guys done yet?” With one last sigh, Jecht throws Auron's coat back at its rightful owner and stands up, stretching his arms. “I ain't dyin’ of old age here, rotting in a place that's not even my home.” He helps them up. He sure doesn't know where the city's temple may be, but he can still lead. And more. He'll do anything it takes. It's just the three of them, after all, lights in a cold world.

“When we play, team, we play to win. Let's go.”

 


End file.
